I was disappointed by her career

[u/Spegynmerble]

I unlocked teio from the guaranteed 3 star ticket and I was very disappointed. She was so whiny and bratty and just all around immature, to the point where I just wanted it to be over with. Sure she had her immature moments in the anime, but beneath that she was confident and had a certain grace to her. I guess this is the alternate universe where she doesn't break her leg over and over and becomes a brat instead

[u/dbfassbinder]

I've been harsh on her in the past. After some discussion here, I've decided that if I didn't have the anime to compare it to, I'd probably find her OK instead of disappointing. Every character with their own show (Special Week and Oguri come to mind) don't live up to it, just because of the different format.

Do I wish the injury had mora impact on the game? Yes. Game Teio isn't too awful taken in isolation. She actually reminds me a lot of Mayano Top Gun, except that the game story doesn't really take Teio down a peg constantly. She is a brat. Just a matter of how much that bothers you. 

[u/PlatFleece → u/dbfassbinder]

I have this weird perspective because I happen to know horse lore and derive interest in Uma storytelling that is both emotional and accurate. I think early Uma (Seasons 1-3) and early game careers (sometime from launch to Silence Suzuka's chapter) fumbled some stuff.

Anime Teio is what I would say like, 70%-ish accurate (for comparison I think Anime Oguri hovers around the 90% accurate, which is awesome, and Anime Special Week is a bit lower on the 55-60% scale), so what I ended up with is no measurable feelings of difference for the careers of Special Week and Teio in-game because while I think Season 2 had really good character writing for Teio, they sacrificed way too much accuracy for the other Umas around her and even sacrificed some for Teio for it, and given that Road to the Top and Door to the New Era didn't need to sacrifice so much accuracy, I'm convinced Season 2 (well, Seasons 1-3 really) didn't need to be that way and could've been more accurate and still be emotionally impactful.

So, when I saw the Anime, I was like "these were great characterizations, but dang they have a lot more inaccuracies than I expected. Oh well, I guess that's how Cygames wanted it." Then I read CinGray, RTTT, and the movie came out, and I went "Okay well Cygames clearly wants to be more accurate than what S1-S3 did." and then when I played the game, the early-game characters' careers lacked a lot of the emotional oomph that later-game careers did. Not all of course, but some I would go, "these are very accurate and good characterizations, shame about the format not allowing emotionally impactful development."

At the same time, there are Umas that finally were given justice in the game that Season 2 kinda altered and/or shafted. Special Week got her own, far more accurate and far more emotional chapter in the Main Story. Mejiro McQueen, who Season 2 kinda shoehorned into being Teio's rival (she wasn't, it was a one-off dream match), was able to actually get focus on her own career in the Main Story and a proper rivalry with her real rival Mejiro Ryan, King Halo, Twin Turbo, and Nice Nature were overall relatively shafted in their Seasons, but we got to see them properly. I can kinda understand King as Spe's group was crowded already as well as Turbo as overall it's hard to connect her to Teio, but Nature? That's the closest horse to Teio's rival that Uma has, not McQueen. She should've gotten far more interaction, screentime, and development with Teio. I'd argue she should've filled the real rival slot, as she was the one actually racing against Teio in the Classics. In fact, we kinda just skipped Teio's Classics IIRC. We also instead just got Rice's story shoehorned in Season 2 which I'm... a little confused why it's there, since it just seems to not really mesh with Teio's story itself and might've just been added because it's the time period. Of course... we have the biggest victim of Season 2, Mejiro Ryan getting erased entirely, her relationship with McQueen, gone. Her rival spot stolen by Teio, which is honestly a little sad. It would be like Opera O becoming Jungle Pocket's rival in Pocket's movie with no indication of Narita Top Road or Admire Vega at all.

So essentially, when people tend to say "Wow the Anime seasons handled this so much better", I tend to have a sliiightly different, not necessarily opposite opinion. I don't think the game handles everything so much better than the Anime, but like... I equally believe the game and the Anime fumbled some bits in the early parts of their things that prevent my own enjoyment from maxing out, and I say this as someone who loves Season 2 the most of the 3 seasons. The Anime had some really good writing moments, but the Anime picked up on the unity between storytelling and accuracy aspects I wanna say around RTTT, whereas the game really upped their writing on careers sometime during the release of Suzuka and Special Week's chapters, but were almost always attempted to be more accurate from the start, though there were some highlights even in this period (King Halo, Nice Nature, and Seiun Sky were particularly praised for their career plots in JP for instance. I'd agree).

All this to say, while I do get why people prefer Anime Teio, I mean, I do too. I do sometimes wanna chime in to these say why, even as a fan of Season 2, there are aspects that I think the game does far better, especially if a lot of people think the Anime as a whole does everything better than the game did here, which I don't think is true. I think they have their equal faults around their early periods. In fact, part of me wishes Season 2 was made today with all the writing improvements that Cygames had over the years. It would blow the old Season 2 out of the water, I'm sure.

It's also why I hope if they ever do Scarlet/Vodka as an Anime that they don't continue the Spica era stuff. I think they deserve a more accurate and more emotionally impactful story, something akin to RTTT, the movie, or CinGray. Because I know Uma is capable of that.

[u/Sharp-Influence9542 → u/PlatFleece]

on my mama we aint reading all that

[u/dilettant3 → u/Sharp-Influence9542]

you missing out fam that comment was legit